As Puntland Breaks Ties & Journalists Under Fire, Where's UN in Somalia and Nicholas Kay?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 6 -- What's wrong with the UN on Somalia, Kismayo and Puntland? Inner City Press at Tuesday's UN noon briefing asked for any UN comment on Puntland severing ties with Mogadishu, assuming there would be one. But Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson Martin Nesirky said he would have to check.

  Where is UN Envoy Nicholas Kay on this? Inner City Presshas tweeted at him, as it did on the still unanswered questions about the use of armed guards by the UN in Somalia: are they from Denel, which some say has a drone better than thecrash prone drone procured from Finmeccanica's Selex ES for MONUSCO under Herve Ladsous? Or some other company?

  There are also attacks on journalists: an attempted assassination in Kismayo on Abdikhadar Iman Dhaqane in Farjane, and the banning at the Mogadishu airport of journalist Mascud Abdulahi Adan from traveling to Nairobi for an operation to remove a bullet from his backbone.

   The UN had nothing on this as well, just after the speeches in the Security Council on protection of journalists in conflict.

  The Free UN Coalition for Access works on such issues, on Somalialand (click here) and elsewhere. What is the UN's position, for example on Puntland? 

 And where is the response, from Ladsous and the UN Mine Action Services, to the whistleblowers' unrebutted complaint that UNMAS' David Bax shared genetic information from bombings with US intelligence, through Bancroft Global near the same Mogadishu airport Mascud Abdulahi Adan was banned in? Watch this site.

   

UN Tells Inner City Press Herve Ladsous' Crash Prone Congo Drone, Selex Falco, Costs 10 M Euros, Run by Contractor, Still Murky

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, August 5 -- After Inner City Press published an exclusive story and asked about crashes in Pakistan and Wales by the the exact drone model that UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous has procured for Eastern Congo, the Selex ES Falco, and questioned the cost, management and use of information, the UN's spokesperson Martin Nesirky at Monday's noon briefing answered some of Inner City Press' questions.

  The single drone will cost 10 million Euros, apparently per year, for a three year contract with two additional years as an option. (Nersirky did not say at whose option these two years would be: the contract should be made public.)

  Nesirky answered that 25 companies from 11 countries visited the Democratic Republic of the Congo and "a number" submitted proposal. Nesirky did not say WHAT number: this, and the proposals, should be made public.

  When Inner City Press asked again who would run the drone, and who would get the information, Nesirky said that "the contractor" will run the UAV. Would that be Finmeccanica, the ultimate parent, also involved in cyber intelligence? This should be specified. 

  Will the drone be controlled from Goma, Kinshasa, or in US style, a room under Las Vegas? Or in Rome?

  Nesirky said that the information will be provided "exclusively" to the MONUSCO mission. Inner City Press asked if MONUSCO would then in turn provide information to the Congolese Army. Nesirky insisted: exclusively to MONUSCO.

Does that mean MONUSCO would never share the positions or movement of armed groups with the FARDC?

  Or with the Permanent Five members of the Security Council, one of which (France) Herve Ladsous represented in the Security Council as Deputy Permanent Representative during the Rwanda genocide, arguing for the escape ofgenocidaires into Eastern Congo which he will now be observing with this murky -- and crash prone -- drone? Watch this site.